Wild turkeys are wary animals with acute senses. Male turkeys are territorial and will challenge another male turkey in an established geographical range. Turkeys of either gender may approach other turkeys to establish dominance in a pecking order. Turkeys are large birds but they can fly a substantial distance and thus can very quickly move about in response to situations.
When hunting wild turkeys, it is common for male (“tom”) turkeys to hesitate in the bushes and undergrowth at the edge of a clearing, making a clear shot difficult. The presence of a receptive female (“hen”) turkey will frequently stimulate an otherwise hesitant tom to enter an open area for purposes of mating with the hen. Accordingly, a variety of decoys have been developed to attract the tom out into a more open area to provide an easier shot at the tom.
Common hunting practice for turkeys and other game may involve tracking or otherwise searching for likely locations, stalking, imitating audible calls, and deployment of one or more decoys followed by lying in wait. The decoys are advantageously lightweight and compact so as to be easily carried to wherever they may be deployed. The decoys need to be deployed quickly and quietly, i.e., assembled or otherwise erected so as to assume a stable realistic pose at a desired location.
A decoy preferably resembles a particular species accurately, at least with regard to attributes that a target species is inclined to notice. The decoy may be quite realistic, or may simply have critical attributes in common with the particular species it emulates, such as a comparable silhouette, color, movement, sound, odor, etc. Decoys that appear realistic to humans are more popular among hunters than those that are obviously artificial. The target species may be prone to respond, positively or negatively, to the same aspects as humans, or possibly other aspects. Visually, many animals are highly sensitive to motion.
Visual mimicry is an important consideration, but not the only one. Decoys should also be inexpensive to manufacture. The decoy should be compact or capable of packing in a manner that permits a hunter to carry a number of decoys into the field. The decoys should individually be very easy to deploy, quickly and silently, in any terrain that may be encountered, such as open grassland, woods or scrub vegetation.
The motion of a decoy can be as important to appearance as the shape and marking of the decoy body. This is particularly true of game animals such as turkeys, which are very sensitive to motion in their surroundings. The specific motion is important. Unnatural motion can be at least as suspicious and/or unconvincing as a lack of any motion.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,531 describes a bird decoy with motion associated with the head and neck. The decoy body is stationary. A one-piece head-and-neck portion is mounted to the body so that the head and neck may tilt when sufficient wind prevails. The decoy is helpful in that it moves, but it is not representative of a live animal, whose motion is unlikely to involve displacement of an integrally rigid head and neck relative to a rigid stationary body, even when the animal is standing in place.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,515,637 discloses a decoy in which the decoy body is mounted on a vertical journal axis by bearings. The idea is for ambient breeze to rotate the body on the vertical journal axis without substantial frictional resistance. The journal axis advantageously is set precisely vertical. The weight of the decoy is advantageously balanced evenly on opposite sides of the axis. The mounting comprises a helical spring that enables the breeze to wobble the decoy in the incident direction of the breeze.
In a frictionless rotational mounting of such a type, it is possible that the decoy body may turn one way or the other on the vertical axis, due to wind or another impetus. Turning on a vertical axis may appear natural in some conditions and therefore could be interesting to a game animal. However the wind speed and direction must catch the decoy body just right. If the wind is not at the particular speed and oriented in the specific direction that produces a convincing motion, the motion may be such that the decoy is caused to appear as an obvious fake. This problem is acute if there are several decoys deployed in a group. It might appear natural and interesting, for example, for decoys in a group occasionally to face in a new direction, for example as live animals in a group might face in unison toward the source of a sound. If decoys in a group rotate freely, a gust of wind could cause them to rotate in different directions and to continue beyond a full revolution. Such motion is mechanical and unrealistic.
If the rotation axis of a journal mounting is not at the center of mass, and the rotation axis is tilted relative to vertical, the decoy body will rotate preferentially to a stable rotational position at which the heaviest part of the decoy is at the lowest elevation. A gust of wind may act to rotate the body due to differences in surface area, for example exerting greater pressure on the thicker tail section than the thinner head section, causing a rotational force. This may rotationally displace the heaviest part of the decoy body from the angular position at which the heaviest part is at the lowest possible elevation. When the wind force subsides, the body tends to rotate back to the preferred orientation, because the heaviest part of the decoy body settles back at the preferred lowermost elevation. Typically, there is an associated rotational oscillation of a decreasing amplitude around the preferred rotational orientation, as the body settles back to the preferred orientation.
In response to the considerations set-forth above, several decoys with movable parts have been developed. These movable parts have been limited principally to neck movement, body tilting or raising and lowering of the body. The movement in some instances depends upon wind currents while others devices are string actuated. The U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,654 employs servo motors that are actuated by an RF transmitter. The patentee teaches moving only the head using one servo motor for raising and lowering the head and another for turning the head from one side to another. U.S. Pat. No. 5,036,614 teaches rotating the entire decoy about a vertical axis on a support peg that must be driven into the ground with such rotation being accomplished manually.
The art of turkey decoys has become increasingly high-tech as exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 6,708,440. The '440 patent discloses a robotic frame having a multiplicity of movable frame portions supporting a flexible decoy cover or figurine. The '440 invention provides a turkey decoy having a plurality of movable parts, which is mounted on a self propelled carriage that moves the decoy from one location to another. Although this invention is an improvement in many respects, it can emit noise during operation or become hung-up in irregular terrain.
Features that improves a decoy with respect to realism and other categories should not add substantially to the cost, weight, or bulk of the decoy. It would be advantageous if realism could be maximized, while preserving the advantages of known decoy arrangements.